Speaking of old aircraft still in flying condition, I can make a couple of recommendations.
First, if you're here in the states, the Collings Foundation, which bills itself as a sort of 'Flying Museum', holds a 'Wings of Freedom Tour' around the country every year. They're currently flying a B-17 Flying Fortress, a B-24 Liberator (one of the last still flying), a B-25 Mitchell, a P-51 Mustang and a P-40 Warhawk. When they're at you local airport (see link below) you can see them on display for $15/person, but you can also make a tax-exempt 'donation' and take a ride in one of the above mentioned aircraft. Back in April 2004, when they were only flying the B-17 and B-24, I got to take an approximately 20 minute flight in the B-17 Flying Fortress. It was an amazing experience and well worth the 'donation' ($400) I made to get the ride. Here's a shot I took out of one of the windows during the flight:
April 2004 (Minolta DiMAGE 7Hi)
I've been considering catching a ride in the B-24 next time they're in town (we were on vacation this year).
Here's the link to their schedule for the remainder of the year:
Now if you're in the UK, while they don't offer rides (at least they didn't when I was there), I can highly recommend visiting the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, near Cambridge. I visited there back in the 90's when I was working in our office in Cambridge for a couple of weeks and stopped by on a Sunday afternoon (unfortunately, I didn't have a camera with me on that trip). As I walked around looking at the static displays of their aircraft, mostly from WWII, I noticed that many of the planes had 'drip pans' under the engines. Now there's only ONE reason why they would do that and that's because these planes were in flying condition and could be flown if they wanted to. On weekends, weather permitting, they would bring out a couple planes and do some demo flights. The weekend I was there they flew a WWII observation plane, the British equivalent to Piper Cub. It was a very short-take-off and landing type plant with wings much larger and thicker than a Piper Cub. It was fun watching it lift off almost immediately and it being able to fly very slow over the airfield in front of the crowd. The other aircraft was a Spitfire. The pilot was a younhg guy, probably in his mid to early 20's, dressed like he had just stepped off a movie set. Anyway, watching that Spitfire take-off and do some rolls and a few very high speed, low-level runs over the field was a thrill. All I could think of was what it must have been like when there were dozens of those planes in the air at once, dog-fighting with the Luftwaffe.
Here is the link to Imperial War Museum Duxford website:
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
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